Modern research and technology have provided society with a wide variety of electronic devices. It is appreciated that some of these modern electronic devices are very powerful and useful to their users. For example, some of the electronic devices which fall into this category include: computers which occupy large office space down to computers which are held in one's hand, global positioning system (GPS) devices capable of determining the specific locations of their users on the earth, satellites which orbit around the earth relaying a multitude of communication signals, to name a few. Furthermore, it is also appreciated that some modern electronic devices also provide entertainment to their users. For instance, some of the electronic devices which fall into this category include: portable compact disc (CD) players which provide music to their users, video game consoles which challenge their users with different situations within different virtual realities, and televisions which provide a wide variety of visual and audio programming to their users.
Recently, an increasingly amount of television programming has become available to the general public. For example, 24 hours a day consumers of the general public are able to receive hundreds of channels of television programming within their households and businesses via personal satellite dishes (large or small), coaxial cables, and the like. Since there are so many choices of television programming available through these different technologies, consumers of the general public typically want to be empowered with more control over the varying television shows which they desire to watch.
One of the ways to provide consumers of the general public with more control over numerous television shows is through the use of an electronic digital recording/play back device. Currently, one of the well known brands of electronic digital recording/play back devices is commercially available under the name of TiVo®. Typically, the electronic digital recording/play back device has the ability to digitally record and subsequently play back specific television shows for its user. The electronic digital recording/play back device is commonly connected to output these recorded television shows to a television where they can be viewed by the user. Furthermore, the electronic digital recording/play back device usually enables its user to pause live television shows and subsequently continue to watch the paused television show at some later time. Additionally, during play back of a previously recorded television show, the electronic digital recording/play back device also enables its user to fast forward or skip through all or some of the recorded television show. As such, a user of the electronic digital recording/play back device typically fast forwards through or skips over advertisements previously recorded by their electronic digital recording/play back device.
However, it should be appreciated that there are disadvantages associated with users of electronic digital recording/play back devices fast forwarding through or skipping over advertisements. One of the main disadvantages is that television content providers will lose advertisement revenue. Specifically, as electronic digital recording/play back devices become increasingly popular with the general public, businesses which pay television content providers for advertisement time will become increasingly aware that their advertisements are not very effective. As such, these businesses are less likely to continue to pay television content providers for more advertisement time in the future if their advertisements are being fast forwarded through or skipped over by users of electronic digital recording/play back devices. Therefore, as it becomes increasingly more difficult for television content providers to solicit advertisement revenues from businesses, their available funding for television program development will be greatly reduced.